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'^he  League  of  Nations 


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OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

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Estate  of 
Klara  Sandrich 


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L 


THE 

LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 


BY 

VISCOUNT  GREY 

OF  FALLODON,  K.C. 


NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


Price,  Five  Cents 


Jt 


THE 
LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 


r  I  lIIERE  are  projects  that  exist  in  a  shadowy  form 
-■•  in  an  atmosphere  of  tepid  idealism,  admired  by 
those  who  see  that  if  possible  they  would  be  desirable. 
From  time  to  time  an  attempt  is  made  to  embody 
them  in  material  form  and  make  them  of  practical 
use  in  national  or  international  politics.  It  is  then 
discovered  that  what  appeared  as  an  ideal  to  be 
wholly  desirable  and  amiable  cannot  be  of  practical 
use,  unless  we  are  ready  to  subject  ourselves  to  some 
limitations  or  discipline  that  may  be  inconvenient, 
and  unless  we  are  prepared  to  overcome  some  diffi- 
culties that  were  not  at  first  sight  apparent.  The 
ideal  is  found  to  have  in  fact  a  stern  and  disagreeable 
as  well  as  an  easy  and  amiable  side  to  it.  Thereupon 
a  storm  beats  against  it;  those  who  never  thought 
it  desirable — for  there  are  intellects  to  which  most 
ideals  seem  dangerous  and  temperaments  to  which 
they  are  offensive — and  who  had  previously  treated 
it  only  with  contempt  in  the  abstract,  offer  the  fiercest 
opposition  to  it  as  a  practical  proposal:  many  of  its 
supporters  are  paralysed  by  the  difficult  aspects  of  it, 
which  they  had  not  previously  considered,  and  the 

3 


890715 


4  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

project  recedes  again  into  the  region  of  shadows  or 
abstract  resolutions. 

This,  or  something  like  this,  has  hitherto  been  the 
history  of  the  ideal  that  has  now  become  associated 
with  the  phrase  "A  League  of  Nations";  but  it  does 
not  follow  that  the  history  of  this  or  of  other  ideals 
will  be  the  same  after  the  war  as  before  it.  There 
is  more  at  stake  in  this  war  than  the  existence  of 
individual  States  or  Empires,  or  the  fate  of  a 
Continent;  the  whole  of  modern  civilization  is  at 
stake,  and  whether  it  will  perish  and  be  submerged, 
as  has  happened  to  previous  civilizations  of  older 
types,  or  whether  it  will  live  and  progress,  depends 
upon  whether  the  nations  engaged  in  this  war,  and 
even  those  that  are  onlookers,  learn  the  lessons  that 
the  experience  of  the  war  may  teach  them.  It  must 
be  with  nations  as  with  individuals;  in  the  great 
trials  of  life  they  must  become  better  or  worse — they 
cannot  stand  still.  They  must  learn  and  profit  by 
experience  and  rise  to  greater  heights,  or  else  sink 
lower  and  drop  eventually  into  the  abyss.  And  this 
war  is  the  greatest  trial  of  which  there  is  any  record 
in  history.  If  the  war  does  not  teach  mankind  new 
lessons  that  will  so  dominate  the  thought  and  feeling 
of  those  who  survive  it,  and  those  who  succeed  the 
survivors,  as  to  make  new  things  possible,  then  the 
war  will  be  the  greatest  catastrophe  as  well  as 
the  most  grievous  trial  and  suffering  of  which 
mankind  has  any  record. 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  5 

Therefore  it  does  not  follow  that  a  League  of 
Nations  to  secure  the  peace  of  the  world  will  remain 
impossible  because  it  has  not  been  possible  hitherto, 
and  I  propose  in  this  paper  to  consider  shortly,  to 
state  rather  than  to  examine  (for  it  would  take  a  long 
time  to  examine  thoroughly),  the  conditions  that  have 
not  been  present  before  and  that  are  present  now, 
or  may  soon  be  present,  and  that  are  essential  if  the 
League  of  Nations  is  to  become  effective.  These 
conditions  appear  to  me  to  be  as  follows : 

1.  The  idea  must  be  adopted  with  earnestness  and 
conviction  by  the  Executive  Heads  of  States.  It 
must  become  an  essential  part  of  their  practical 
policy,  one  of  their  chief  reasons  for  being  or  con- 
tinuing to  be  responsible  for  the  policy  of  their 
States.  They  must  not  adopt  it  only  to  render  lip 
service  to  other  persons,  whom  it  is  inconvenient  or 
ungracious  to  displease.  They  must  lead,  and  not 
follow;  they  must  compel  if  necessary,  and  not  be 
compelled. 

This  condition  was  not  present  before  the  war; 
to  what  extent  is  it  present  now?  It  is  not  possible 
to  answer  this  question  fully,  but  it  can  be  answered 
certainly  and  affirmatively  as  regards  President 
Wilson,  the  Executive  Head  of  the  United  States, 
and  this  alone  is  sufficient  to  give  new  life  and 
purpose  to  the  idea  of  a  League  of  Nations.  President 
Wilson  and  his  country  have  had  in  this  matter  the 
great  advantage  of  having  been  for  more  than  two 


6  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

years  and  a  half,  before  April  1917,  able  to  observe 
the  war  as  neutrals,  free  from  the  intense  anxiety 
and  effort  that  absorb  all  the  thought  and  energy 
of  belligerents.  They  were  able  not  only  to  observe, 
but  to  reflect  and  to  draw  conclusions.  One  of  the 
conclusions  has  been  that,  if  the  world  of  which  they 
form  an  important  part  is  to  be  saved  from  what 
they  consider  disaster,  they  must  enter  the  war 
against  Germany;  another  has  been  that,  if  national 
liberty  and  peace  are  to  be  secure  in  future,  there 
must  be  a  League  of  Nations  to  secure  them.  It 
must  not  be  supposed  from  this  that  the  Governments 
of  the  Allies  are  less  ready  to  draw,  or  have  not 
already  drawn,  the  same  conclusion  from  the 
experience  of  the  war ;  but  their  counljries  have  been 
at  war  all  the  time.  They  have  been  fighting,  it  is 
true,  for  the  same  ideal  of  national  and  human  liberty 
as  the  United  States,  but  fighting  also  for  the  im- 
mediate preservation  of  national  existence  in  Europe, 
and  all  their  thought  and  energy  have  been  con- 
centrated upon  resistance  to  imminent  peril.  Never- 
theless, in  this  country  at  any  rate,  the  project  of 
a  League  of  Nations  has  met  with  widespread  and 
cordial  acceptance.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Military 
party  in  Germany  are,  and  must  remain,  opposed 
to  it;  they  resent  any  limitation  upon  the  use  of 
force  by  Germany  as  fatal  to  German  interests,  for 
they  can  conceive  no  development,  and  even  no 
security,  except  one  based  solely  upon  force.     Any 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  7 

other  conception  is  fatal,  and  this  exclusive  conception. 
is  essential  to  the  maintenance  of  the  power  of  the 
military  party  in  Germany.  As  long,  therefore,  as 
this  rule  in  Germany  continues,  Germany  will  oppose 
a  LeagTie  of  Nations.  Nothing  will  change  this 
except  a  conviction  in  the  German  people  that  the 
use  of  force  causes  at  least  as  much  suffering  to 
themselves  as  to  others,  and  that  security  based  upon 
law  and  treaty  and  a  sense  of  mutual  advantage 
is  better  than  the  risks,  dangers,  and  sufferings  of 
a  will  to  supreme  power  eind  efforts  to  obtain  it; 
and  this  conviction  must  so  work  upon  them  as  to 
displace  the  military  party  and  their  policy  and  ideals 
from  power  in  Germany. 

The  situation,  therefore,  of  this  first  condition 
essential  to  make  the  League  of  Nations  practical 
may  be  summed  up  as  follows:  It  is  present  cer- 
tainly as  regards  the  Executive  Head  of  the  United 
States,  which  is  potentially  the  strongest  and  actually 
the  least  exhausted  of  all  the  belligerent  States:  it 
either  is  or  will  at  the  end  of  the  war  be  found  to  be 
present  as  regards  the  Governments  of  other  countries 
fighting  on  the  same  side  as  the  United  States.  Even 
among  their  enemies  Austria  has  publicly  shown  a 
disposition  to  accept  the  proposal,  and  probably 
welcomes  it  genuinely  though  secretly  as  a  safeguard 
for  her  future,  not  only  against  old  enemies,  but 
against  Prussian  domination. 

All    small    States,    belligerent    or    neutral,    must 


\ 


8  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

naturally  desire  in  their  own  interest  everything  that 
will  safeguard  small  States  as  well  as  great  from 
aggression  and  war. 

There  remains  the  opposition  of  Germany,  where 
recent  military  success  and  the  ascendancy  of  Prus- 
sian militarism  have  reduced  the  advocates  of  any- 
thing but  force  to  silence.  Germany  has  to  be  convinced 
that  force  does  not  pay,  that  the  aims  and  policy  of 
her  military  rulers  inflict  intolerable  and  also  un- 
necessary suffering  upon  her;  and  that  when  the 
world  is  free  from  the  menace  of  these  military  rulers, 
with  their  sharp  swords,  shining  armour,  and  mailed 
fists,  Germany  will  find  peaceful  development  assured' 
and  preferable  to  expansion  by  war,  and  will  realize 
that  the  condition  of  true  security  for  one  nation  is 
a  sense  of  security  on  the  part  of  all  nations.  Till 
Germany  feels  this  to  be  true,  there  can  be  no  League 
of  Nations  in  the  sense  intended  by  President  Wilson. 
A  League  such  as  he  desires  must  include  Germany, 
and  should  include  no  nation  that  is  not  thoroughly 
convinced  of  the  advantage  and  necessity  of  such 
a  League,  and  is  therefore  not  prepared  to  make  the 
efforts,  and,  if  need  be,  the  sacrifices  necessary  to 
maintain  it. 

2.  The  second  condition  essential  to  the  foundation 
and  maintenance  of  a  League  of  Nations  is  that  the 
Governments  and  Peoples  of  the  States  willing  to 
found  it  understand  clearly  that  it  will  impose  some 
limitation  upon  the  national  action  of  each,  and  may 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  9^ 

entail  some  inconvenient  obligation.  The  smaller  and 
weaker  nations  will  have  rights  that  must  be  respected  \ 
and  upheld  by  the  League.  The  stronger  nations 
must  forgo  the  right  to  make  their  interests  prevail 
against  the  weaker  by  force :  and  all  the  States  must 
forgo  the  right  in  any  dispute  to  resort  to  force 
before  other  methods  of  settlement  by  conference, 
conciliation,  or,  if  need  be,  arbitration,  have  been 
tried.    This  is  the  limitation.  \^ 

The  obligation  is  that  if  any  nation  will  not  observe 
this  limitation  upon  its  national  action ;  if  it  breaks 
the  agreement  which  is  the  basis  of  the  League,  rejects 
all  peaceful  methods  of  settlement  and  resorts  to  force, 
the  other  nations  must  one  and  all  use  their  combined 
force  against  it.  The  economic  pressure  that  such  a 
League  could  use  would  in  itself  be  very  powerful, 
and  the  action  of  some  of  the  smaller  States  com- 
posing the  League  could  perhaps  not  go  beyond 
economic  pressure,  but  those  States  that  have  power 
must  be  ready  to  use  all  the  force,  economic,  military, 
or  naval,  that  they  possess.  It  must  be  clearly  under- 
stood and  accepted  that  defection  from  or  violation 
of  the  agreement  by  one  or  more  States  does  not 
absolve  all  or  any  of  the  others  from  the  obligation 
to  enforce  the  agreement. 

Anything  less  than  this  is  of  no  value.  How 
worthless  it  may  be  can  be  seen  by  reading  the  debate 
in  the  House  of  Lords  in  1867  upon  the  Treaty 
guaranteeing  the  neutrality  of  Luxemburg.     It  was 


10  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

there  explained  that  we  entered  only  into  a  collective 
guarantee ;  by  this  it  was  apparently  meant  that  if 
any  one  of  the  guaranteeing  Powers  violated  the 
Neutrality  of  Luxemburg,  or  even  if  any  one  of  them 
declined  to  take  active  steps  to  defend  it,  Great 
Britain  and  the  other  guarantors  were  thereby  ab- 
solved from  taking  any  action  whatever.  This  was 
contrasted  at  the  time  with  the  Belgian  Treaty, 
which  entailed  a  separate  guarantee. 

Hitherto  the  Nations  of  the  world  have  made  re- 
serves in  Arbitration  or  Conciliation  agreements, 
showing  that  they  were  not  prepared  to  accept  the 
limitations  upon  national  action  that  are  essential  to 
secure  an  effective  League  of  Nations.  An  exception 
is  the  Conciliation  Treaty  between  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  States  negotiated  before  the  war,  but  the 
statement  made  above  is  generally  true. 

The  Nations  have  also  carefully  abstained  from 
undertaking  any  obligation  to  use  force  to  uphold 
the  benevolent  rules  and  agreements  of  general  ap- 
plication that  have  been  recorded  at  Hague  Con- 
ferences; such  obligation  has  been  confined  to  local 
objects  like  the  Neutrality  of  Belgium  or  to  alliances 
between  particular  Powers  made  to  protect  or  serve 
their  special  interests. 

Are  the  Nations  of  the  world  prepared  now,  or  will 
they  be  ready  after  this  war,  to  look  steadily  and 
clearly  at  this  aspect  of  the  League  of  Nations,  at 
the  limitations  and  obligations  that  it  will  impose. 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  11 

and  to  say  whole-hearted  and  convinced  as  they  have      \ 
never  been  before,  "We  will  accept  and  undertake 
them"? 

Individuals  in  civilized  States  have  long  ago  ac- 
cepted an  analogous  limitation  and  obligation  as  re- 
gards disputes  between  individuals;  these  are  settled 
by  law,  and  any  individual  who,  instead  of  appealing 
to  law,  resorts  to  force  to  give  effect  to  what  he  con- 
siders his  rights,  finds  himself  at  once  opposed  and 
restrained  by  the  force  of  the  State — that  is,  in  demo- 
cratic countries,  by  the  combined  force  of  the  other 
individuals.  And  we  not  only  accept  this  arrange- 
ment, but  uphold  it  as  essential  to  prevent  oppression 
of  one  by  another,  to  secure  each  person  in  a  quiet 
life,  and  to  guarantee  to  each  the  greatest  liberty  that 
is  consistent  with  the  equal  liberty  of  neighbours. 
That  at  any  rate  is  part  of  the  theory  and  object  of 
democratic  government,  and  if  it  is  not  perfectly 
attained  most  of  the  proposals  for  improving  it  look 
rather  to  increased  than  to  diminished  State  control. 

But  in  less  civilized  parts  of  the  world  individuals 
have  not  reached  the  point  of  view  from  which  this 
order  of  things  seems  desirable.  There  is  a  story  of 
a  native  chief  in  Africa,  who  protested  to  a  British 
official  against  having  to  pay  any  taxes.  The  British 
official  explained,  no  doubt  in  the  best  modern  man- 
ner, that  these  taxes  were  used  to  keep  order  in  the 
country,  with  the  result  that  men  and  women  and  the 
flocks  and  herds  and  possessions  of  every  tribe  were 


12  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

safe,  and  each  could  live  in  its  own  territory  without 
fear  or  disturbance,  and  that  the  payment  of  taxes  was 
for  the  good  of  all.  The  effect  of  this  explanation  was 
to  make  the  chief  very  angry.  Before  the  British  came, 
he  said,  he  could  raid  a  neighbour,  return  with  cap- 
tives and  captures  of  all  sorts  and  be  received  in 
triumph  by  the  women  and  the  rest  of  his  tribe  when 
he  returned.  The  need  for  protecting  his  own  tribe 
from  similar  raids  he  was  willing  to  undertake  him- 
self. "Now,"  he  said,  "you  come  here  and  tell  me 
that  I  ought  to  like  to  pay  taxes  to  be  prevented  from 
doing  this,  and  that  makes  me  mad." 

The  analogy  between  States  and  individuals  or 
groups  of  individuals  is  not  perfect,  but  there  is 
suiBcient  analogy  to  make  it  not  quite  irrelevant 
to  ask,  whether  after  this  war  the  view  held  by  great 
States  of  the  relations  desirable  between  themselves 
will  be  that  of  the  African  chief  or  that  of  individuals 
in  what  we  call  civilized  Nations.  Nothing  but  ex- 
perience convinced  individuals  that  law  was  better 
than  anarchy  to  settle  the  relations  between  them- 
selves. And  the  sanction  that  maintains  law  is  the 
application  of  force  with  the  support  of  the  great 
majority  of  individuals  behind  it.  Is  it  possible  that 
the  experience  of  this  war  will  produce  a  settled 
opinion  of  the  same  sort  to  regulate  the  relations  of 
States  with  each  other  and  safeguard  the  world  from 
war,  which  is  in  fact  anarchy? 

What  does  the  experience  of  this  war  amount  to? 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  13 

Our  minds  cannot  grasp  it  all.  Thought  is  crushed 
by  the  accumulated  suffering  that  the  war  has  caused 
and  is  still  causing.  We  cannot  utter  all  that  we  feel, 
and  if  it  were  not  that  our  feelings  are  in  a  way 
stunned  by  the  very  violence  of  the  catastrophe,  as 
physical  nerves  are  to  some  extent  numbed  by  great 
blows,  the  human  heart  could  not  bear  up  and  live 
under  the  trial  of  this  war.  Great  must  be  the  effect 
of  all  this :  greater  after  even  than  during  the  war  on 
the  working  of  men's  minds,  and  on  human  nature 
itself;  but  this  is  not  what  I  intend  to  urge  here. 
I  will  urge  only  one  point  and  one  that  is  for  the  head 
rather  than  the  heart. 

We  are  now  in  the  fourth  year  of  the  war:  the 
application  of  scientific  knowledge  and  the  inven- 
tions of  science  during  the  war  have  made  it  more 
and  more  terrible  and  destructive  each  year.  The 
Germans  have  abrogated  all  previously  accepted  rules 
of  warfare.  The  use  of  poisonous  gas,  the  firing  from 
the  sea  upon  open  undefended  towns,  the  indiscrimi- 
nate bombing  of  big  cities  from  the  air  were  all  intro- 
duced into  the  war  by  Germany.  It  was  long  before 
the  Allies  adopted  any  of  these  practices  even  as  re- 
prisals; but  the  Germans  have  forced  a  ruthless  and 
unlimited  application  of  scientifia  discovery  to  the  de- 
struction of  human  life,  combatant  and  non-combat- 
ant. They  have  shown  the  world  that  now  and  hence- 
forth war  means  this  and  nothing  less  than  this.  If 
there  is  to  be  another  war  in  twenty  or  thirty  years' 


14  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

time,  what  will  it  be  like?  If  there  is  to  he  concen- 
trated preparation  for  more  war,  the  researches  of  sci- 
ence will  he  devoted  henceforth  to  discovering  meth- 
ods by  which  the  human  race  can  be  destroyed.  These 
discoveries  cannot  be  confined  to  one  nation  and  their 
object  of  wholesale  destruction  will  be  much  more  com- 
pletely achieved  hereafter  even  than  in  this  war.  The 
Germans  are  not  blind  to  this,  but  as  far  as  I  can  see 
their  rulers  propose  to  avoid  future  wars  by  establish- 
ing the  domination  of  Germany  for  ever.  Peace  can 
never  be  secured  by  the  domination  of  one  country  se- 
curing its  power  and  prosperity  by  the  submission  and 
disadvantage  of  others,  and  the  German  idea  of  a 
world  peace  secured  by  the  power  of  German  militar- 
ism is  impracticable  as  well  as  unfair  and  abhorrent 
to  other  Nations.  It  is  as  intolerable  and  impossible  in 
the  world  as  despotism  would  be  here  or  in  the  United 
States.  In  opposition  to  this  idea  of  Germany,  the  Al- 
lies should  set  forth,  as  President  Wilson  has  already 
set  forth,  the  idea  of  a  peace  secured  by  mutual  regard 
between  States  for  the  rights  of  each  and  a  deter- 
mination to  stamp  out  any  attempt  at  war,  as  they 
would  a  plague  that  threatened  the  destruction  of  all. 

When  those  who  accept  this  idea  and  this  sort  of 
peace  can  in  word  and  deed  speak  for  Germany,  we 
shall  be  within  sight  of  a  good  peace. 

The  establishment  and  maintenance  of  a  League  of 
Nations,  such  as  President  Wilson  has  advocated,  is 
more  important  and  essential  to  a  secure  peace  than 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  15 

any  of  the  actual  terms  of  peace  that  may  conclude 
the  war:  it  will  transcend  them  all.  The  best  of 
them  will  be  worth  little,  unless  the  future  relations 
of  States  are  to  be  on  a  basis  that  will  prevent  a 
recurrence  of  militarism  in  any  State. 

"Learn  by  experience  or  suffer"  is  the  rule  of  life. 
We  have  all  of  us  seen  individuals  becoming  more  and 
more  a  misery  to  themselves  and  others,  because  they 
cannot  understand  or  will  not  accept  this  rule.  Is  it 
not  applicable  to  Nations  as  well?  And  if  so,  have 
not  Nations  come  to  a  great  crisis  in  which  for  them 
the  rule  "Learn  or  perish"  will  prove  inexorable? 
All  must  learn  the  lesson  of  this  war.  The  United 
States  and  the  Allies  cannot  save  the  world  from 
militarism  unless  Germany  learns  the  lesson  thor- 
oughly and  completely;  and  they  will  not  save  the 
world,  or  even  themselves,  by  complete  victory  over 
Germany  until  they  too  have  learnt  and  can  apply 
the  lesson  that  militarism  has  become  the  deadly  en- 
emy of  mankind. 

May  nth,  1918. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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AUG  3 11^ 


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The  high  literary  merit,  studious  Tnoderation  and  charming  j 
of  the  author  make  this  thrilling  book  "the  most  damning  in ' 
Germany's  inhumanity  that  has  yet  appeared."  12mo. 

MY  HOME  IN  THE  FIELD  OF  MERCY       By  Frances  Wili 

MY  HOME  IN  THE  FIELD  OF  HONOUR  By  Frances  Wii 

The  simple,  intimate,  classic  narrative  which  has  taken  rank 
the  few  distinguished  books  produced  since  the  outbreak  of  ' 

Illustrated.    Each  12mo. 


GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY      Publishers     New 

PUBLISHERS     IN     AMERICA      FOR     HODDER     8C     STOUGHTC 


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